


Alone, and Not Alone

by Karalyn



Category: Foreigner Series - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pillow Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7064467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karalyn/pseuds/Karalyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love and man'chi.  Bren's conversation with Geigi in "Intruder" leads to pillow talk with Jago.  PG-13 bedroom scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone, and Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> A little fluff piece I was too weak NOT to write while trying to write something else, it is set right after the end of “Intruder,” as it makes reference to a delightful conversation between Bren and Geigi in Chapter 15 of that book. No major spoilers I don't think? I couldn’t decide how formal one gets in atevi pillow talk, but the multiple levels of formal address are one of my favorite parts of the series.

"Did I hurt you?” Jago asked, in the dark, some hours later.  


“No, Jago-ji. Not at all.” That was possibly a lie. A small one. A lie he would happily live with as long as it didn’t prevent her from doing some future night what she had done tonight. He curled up with his back against her, drinking in her warmth.  


“You are thinking, Bren-ji” she said. Her keen vision in the dim light meant she always knew when he was awake. Although perhaps some of that was Guild training.  


'I am thinking,” he agreed.  


“Is it relevant to recent events?”  


“I was thinking of Tabini-aiji and Damiri-daja. Of what Tabini told me of the difficulties in their household. Of the choice she made tonight.” Bren paused, thinking hard. “I know why a human might choose as she did. I do not know why she made _her_ choice.”  


“Why would a human make it?”  


"Love. Betrayal at being manipulated by her father. Or political calculation,” Bren said, unconsciously grouping the choices as the standard atevi set of three.  


“You mention ‘love’ first,” Jago pointed out. “If I had listed reasons, I would have said ‘man’chi’ first.”  


“While Lord Geigi was here, he wanted to speak at some length about his understanding of such elusive human concepts as “friendship” and “love.” He thinks he understands friendship, and said that he considers me a friend.” Bren smiled. “Wilson-paidhi would go mad if he heard an ateva say that. How I wish I could see it.”  


“The aiji would pass out event cards,” Jago agreed.  


“I think Lord Geigi’s time on the station has changed him as much as my time on the continent has changed me. We are in many ways the same in our separate worlds, and I still understand man’chi no better than he understands love. But he is content where he is, as I am.” He sighed. “I am being a foolish human, Jago-ji. Pay me no mind.”  


“It is difficult to pay no mind to a person who is lying on one’s arm,” she said, amused. “What did the lords of the aishidi’tat decide about ‘man’chi’ and ‘love,’ nandi?” She knew it bothered him to be called ‘nandi’ in bed; she was clearly teasing him, and meant it as a joke. As if he were no longer human enough to render an opinion on such foreign things.  


“That it is like man’chi, but not. Or that if nothing else they are at least alike in being intense in personal experience but impossible to pin down with words.” He laughed at his own ridiculousness. “The entire repertoire of machimi plays on the side of man’chi, and the entire human history of music and literature on the side of love, and the best we can come up with is ‘very hard to define.’ Some philosophers we are.” He rolled over to face her, absently tracing the smooth skin of her muscled arm up to her shoulder. “Is it a human weakness, Jago-ji? Do atevi lie awake at night thinking about man’chi?”  


“Not since I was the young gentleman’s age,” she said with a quiet laugh. “But I suspect most Guild are more drawn to action than philosophy.  


“I _am_ being foolish.”  


“You are a man of words, Bren-ji,” she said, freeing a lock of his hair to twirl around her finger. “You study and use them the way we study and use weapons. Two languages, two cultures worth of words. Infelicitous two. They make war in your head, I think.”  


“Perhaps if I master the kyo language someday, a third will create balance,” he said, laughing at the thought.  


“I am not superstitious,” she said. “There are certain things that two is perfectly suited for.” She demonstrated a few of those things, at some length.

There was only silence, after, and he thought she slept but he could only think of what he had said to Geigi, that love was miserable when not reciprocal. But he was not miserable. So either what he felt for his aishid was not love, or man’chi and love were similar enough to be reciprocal with each other. 

He would never ask too closely whether what Jago felt toward him fell within the bounds of normal for man’chi, or not.

And she would never tell anyone that twice, when Bren certainly thought she had been asleep, she had heard him whisper “I love you.”


End file.
